'It's become a nepo baby sport': how secondhand fashion got so expensive Everything is vintage eventually. The question is who prices it.

Resale apps entered the picture at some point in the last few years, and pricing shifted alongside them. Around the same time, several luxury brands were, until recently, still permitted to destroy unsold stock rather than sell it at a discount. A study found that people who buy more secondhand also buy more new. Meanwhile, every week, Ghana ends up holding what the rest of the world couldn't sell.

DoorDash has launched DoorDash Air, an in-house drone-delivery program that has just received FAA certification for commercial operations. "This does not mean DoorDash's custom-built drones will be delivering burritos tomorrow, or even next month," notes TechCrunch. "The company didn't provide a detailed timeline for when its aircraft would be used in operations." From the report: [I]t will likely begin with limited pilot programs in which the unmanned aircraft will travel short distances while remaining within the line of sight of the operator. If DoorDash wants its drones to fly autonomously over longer distances, it will need the FAA to approve its Beyond Visual Line of Sight technology, a certification that companies like Amazon, Wing, and Zipline have received in recent years.

Despite the new program, the food and grocery delivery company is maintaining its existing partnerships with Wing and Flytrex. DoorDash partnered with Alphabet's Wing in 2022 for a drone delivery program in Australia, and later expanded the partnership to a couple of U.S. cities, including Dallas-Fort Worth, in 2024.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Russia has charged Telegram founder Pavel Durov with facilitating terrorism, alleging the platform was used by Ukrainian intelligence "to prepare and co-ordinate acts of sabotage and terror" inside Russia. An international arrest warrant has been issued for Durov, who currently lives in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where Telegram keeps its main office. The BBC reports: Shortly after the charge was announced, Telegram's account on X posted an image showing Durov holding up his middle finger. He has previously accused Russian authorities of "fabricating new pretexts to restrict Russians' access to Telegram."

[...] Multi-billionaire Durov, 41, has lived outside of Russia for many years and holds French and United Arab Emirates (UAE) passports. It is unclear whether other countries or authorities would comply with an arrest warrant issued by Russia.

Durov left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with government demands to shut down opposition communities on the platform. He had previously founded popular Russian social media company VKontakte - dubbed the "Facebook of Russia." In 2024, Durov was arrested and investigated by the French government in connection with criminal activity on the platform and a lack of cooperation with law enforcement. "He was allowed to go home months later, with the investigation continuing," notes the BBC.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Uncle Sam will no longer be hosting his own supercomputers to predict the weather. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has picked Google Cloud to provide the infrastructure for its weather forecasting operations. In an announcement, NOAA boasted that it will be the first national weather prediction center to run on the commercial cloud, though the UK's Met Office is also in the process of moving its own weather prediction system to Microsoft Azure in a hybrid setup. Weather operations are typically run on in-house or government-funded supercomputer systems, which helps drive the HPC (high performance computing) market. General Dynamics held the previous contract for managing NOAA’s weather predicting machines, which most recently were HPE Cray supercomputers running in data centers in Virginia and Arizona. Those machines – Dogwood and Cactus – could crank almost 14 PFlops of weather-predicting prognosis. The plan is to move NOAA’s Weather and Climate Operational Supercomputing System, run by the National Weather Service (NWS) division, over to the cloud by December 2027, along with the software that generates NWS weather data for analysis. Don’t say global warming The agency is hoping that the cloud will make model forecasting more nimble, resulting in earlier predictions and better warnings for all the extreme weather events that seem to keep occurring these days. It was the in-house systems that were holding things back, evidently. “Cloud-based high-performance computing will accelerate the transition of research into operations by eliminating traditional bottlenecks of on-premise systems,” said NOAA Administrator Neil Jacobs in a statement. Jacobs noted that the cloud’s flexibility for providing large amounts of compute is advantageous: the agency can ramp up cycles during tropical storm season, then wind them down during calmer periods. Under the contract, NOAA can also avail itself of Google’s DeepMind set of AI tools to help build out its first AI-driven weather forecasting system, the AI Global Forecast System, which promises to offer accurate weather forecasts using 99.7% fewer computer cycles and take minutes, rather than hours, to produce a forecast. NWS has already been upgrading the software downstream from GFS and GEFS to also work in the cloud. In March, it awarded contracts to Accenture and Booz Allen Hamilton to oversee the development of cloud-based software (HIVE and CIRRUS) for the field offices to analyze data and push out alerts, replacing the in-house software doing these tasks currently. For the job, Google plans to use Google Cloud H4D VMs, built on AMD Epyc processors. Google labels these instances as “virtual machines” because they run under a hypervisor that integrates Google’s networking and orchestration tools. As a result, they can be synchronized to run large jobs the same way supercomputers do. According to Google, customers can access H4Ds for as low as 3 cents per core-hour without long-term commitments. For supercomputing jobs, they can also use Cluster Toolkit to deploy clusters and Cluster Director to maintain them. Google Cloud’s Batch can handle the queuing, scheduling, and resource provisioning. ®

The dream of having a mechanical maid to clean your home is real … sort of. San Francisco residents can now hire a robot cleaner for just $30 an hour, but there's a catch. The robots are at least partially controlled by humans who are watching your home remotely. Tau Robotics cofounder and CEO Alexander Koch announced in a post on X Tuesday that his company was launching the waitlist for its invite-only cleaning services on Tau’s website. Bereft of details like the specifics of the robot’s capabilities, Tau’s website is instead largely devoted to videos of the diminutive, router-headed, frog-eyed robot doing stuff. It’s shown in various videos and still shots hopping out of a minivan and grabbing its work bag, wiping down the inside of a refrigerator, cleaning surfaces, vacuuming, and emptying trash cans with its pincer-like hands. The site also presents three featured house-cleaning robots for San Francisco: "Chelsea," which specializes in cleaning kitchens and bathrooms; "Elon," which Tau says learns where household items belong after a few recurring visits and returns them there; and "Tony," a deep-cleaning specialist. Koch claimed on X that none of the videos of the robot are sped up to make it look more natural, giving it a weirdly human way of moving that suggests Tau has developed a pretty robust robot - if the company is the one that actually designed it. That doesn't appear to be the case, however. Koch told us that the robot's cameras, claws, and onboard compute system were designed in house, but the rest of the hardware comes from Chinese robot maker Unitree. Hopefully Tau has enough spares lying around since the Trump administration just banned imports of foreign robots. Peek-a-boo: Tau operators see you There’s also a big catch to this entire thing, as Koch notes in his post: It ain’t exactly autonomous. “Each humanoid is jointly controlled by a human operator and AI,” the Tau CEO said. An AI policy is always controlling the robot’s motors, Koch explained in a LinkedIn chat, but there’s always a human involved, too. “A human operator is always guiding that [AI] policy, sometimes directly and sometimes through higher-level instructions,” Koch said. “The balance varies by task.” The Tau CEO went on to tell us that he sees the project as “conceptually similar to autonomous driving,” meaning that human operators are fully behind the wheel for now, and over time will only be there for safety before eventually being phased out entirely. As explained further in the company’s service privacy policy, each robot is controlled in real time by a human operator during cleaning visits, although Tau says the robots are jointly controlled by AI and a human operator. Some operators are Tau employees and some are placed through a staffing agency, but all of them are working on-site at Tau’s facility and have been background checked and trained by Tau, the company claims. “We plan to enable remote supervision from other locations in the future,” Koch told us. That said, the robots are still capturing video to train Tau's AI cleaning models that the company said it hopes "will eventually do the job without a human operator." That video is stored indefinitely unless customers request it be deleted. Operators, support staff, engineers, and third-party service providers all have access to those videos even if Tau doesn’t sell them or share anything for advertising purposes, and the company said recordings will include full video of every person in the home as well. Be sure to put some pants on before the thing visits, in other words. If you’re still keen to let a human-operated robomaid into your house, you’d better get in line: Koch told us that each cleaning session is just one hour and so far “several hundred people” have signed up to be granted a spot. ®

SAN JUAN (ANP/AFP) - In het westen van Argentinië zijn zeven mensen omgekomen door een ongeluk met een blushelikopter. Het toestel werd gebruikt bij het bestrijden van een brand in natuurpark Ischigualasto. Onder de doden zijn brandweerlieden, politieagenten en personeel van de civiele beschermingsdienst.

De helikopter, van het type Bell 412, verloor woensdagochtend al het contact toen die onderweg was van de provincie San Juan naar La Rioja. Na een korte zoekactie werd het neergestorte toestel gevonden.

Het is nog niet duidelijk wat de oorzaak was van het ongeluk. Een lokale functionaris vertelde aan de krant La Nación dat de piloot door mist waarschijnlijk slecht zicht had.

MENLO PARK (ANP) - Meta Platforms, het moederbedrijf van Facebook, WhatsApp en Instagram, heeft in het tweede kwartaal flink meer omzet geboekt, geholpen door hogere prijzen voor advertenties op zijn platformen. De winst daalde wel onder druk van hogere kosten voor onder meer AI-investeringen en banenverlies.

De omzet steeg met 28 procent tot 60,8 miljard dollar ten opzichte van een jaar eerder. Volgens Meta steeg de gemiddelde prijs van een advertentie met 12 procent. De nettowinst kwam uit op 15,8 miljard dollar, een daling van 14 procent. De totale kosten bedroegen in het afgelopen kwartaal 42 miljard dollar, een toename van 55 procent. Daarin zijn ook kosten verwerkt voor het schrappen van duizenden banen.

Het in het Californische Menlo Park gevestigde Meta zei voor het lopende kwartaal een omzet te verwachten tussen de 61 miljard en 64 miljard dollar.

De kapitaalinvesteringen van Meta in onder meer AI-datacenters liggen dit jaar nu tussen de 130 miljard en 145 miljard dollar. Eerder was dit een bedrag tussen de 125 miljard en 145 miljard dollar.

VALE DE TELHAS (ANP) - In het noorden van Portugal zijn mensen uit een dorp geëvacueerd vanwege een natuurrand die zich snel verspreidt, meldt nieuwssite Observador. Het vuur zou het hele dorp Vale de Telhas inmiddels omsingelen.

Portugal kampt op dit moment met zeer hoge temperaturen. Op sommige plekken werd het woensdag rond de 40 graden. Ook Frankrijk en Spanje hebben te maken met die hitte. Daar woeden al dagen grote natuurbranden. Eurocommissaris Hadja Lahbib (crisisbeheer) waarschuwde dinsdag dat vanaf dat moment de omstandigheden ook in Portugal zouden verslechteren.

NEW YORK (ANP) - De aandelenbeurzen in New York zijn woensdag met flinke verliezen gesloten. De aandacht van beleggers op Wall Street ging vooral uit naar het rentebesluit van de Amerikaanse centrale bank. De Federal Reserve hield de rente onveranderd, al waren er wel drie stemmen in het bestuur voor een verhoging. Daarnaast stegen de olieprijzen hard door het opgelaaide geweld in het Midden-Oosten. De chipfondsen stonden opnieuw bij de dalers door aanhoudende zorgen over toenemende concurrentie vanuit China.

Op de financiële markten was al verwacht dat de Fed de rente ongewijzigd zou laten, hoewel niet werd uitgesloten dat er een verhoging kon komen tegen de hoge inflatie. In een toelichting zei Fed-voorzitter Kevin Warsh dat de Amerikaanse economie indrukwekkend weerbaar is tegen de recente prijsschokken en dat de Fed niet zal aarzelen bij het tegengaan van de inflatie.

De Dow-Jonesindex eindigde 2,2 procent lager op 51.594,14 punten. De breed samengestelde S&P 500 zakte 1,5 procent tot 7316,15 punten en de technologiegraadmeter Nasdaq daalde 1,7 procent tot 24.442,94 punten.

KYIV (ANP) - Volgens de Oekraïense president Volodymyr Zelensky is het "zeer waarschijnlijk" dat Rusland in de nacht van woensdag op donderdag een enorme luchtaanval zal uitvoeren. Hij schrijft op X dat de Russen al een paar dagen bezig zijn met de voorbereiding van die grootschalige aanvalsgolf.

Zelensky grijpt die dreiging aan om zijn bondgenoten nog eens op te roepen de munitie te leveren voor de luchtafweer die Oekraïne dringend nodig heeft. Hij spreekt vooral de Verenigde Staten aan en alle andere landen die nog Patriot-raketten hebben liggen. "Al onze bondgenoten weten wat we nodig hebben en wat de gevolgen zijn van treuzelen", schrijft de president.

I really like what Razaak Eniola has to say here about human difference.

Before Prince was Prince, Prince was weird. And that goes the same for probably any of your favorite artists. Before Erykah Badu was Erykah Badu, Erykah Badu was weird. Before Marc Rebillet was Marc Rebillet, Marc Rebillet was weird.

Everybody loves to clap at the end — and most of the time we are clapping for the wrong reasons. We live in a culture that loves final products.

It’s cool to be weird, as long as it’s rooted and aligned with what’s true and what’s sincere.

I often tell people they’re weird and it’s always a compliment. Before it came to mean odd-looking or “disturbingly different”, weird meant “having power to control fate” — perhaps you could think of it as describing someone who can forge their own way, make their own luck.

Here’s a short quiz to discover your weirdness: You’re Weirder Than You Think.

For whatever reason, this also reminds me of something I read earlier today by Robin Sloan:

We should never forget that the product of work isn’t only the work — it’s also the worker.

(via @witoldriedel & @prisonculture.bsky.social)

Tags: language · Razaak Eniola

Walmart is busy building out their fast EV charger network in the US…currently 73 locations in 17 states. Their eventual goal is install chargers at “thousands of its locations by 2030”.

on the water photography has added a photo to the pool:

This is the Tsurudaira Main Building in Kitakyushu City, Japan, a 6-story residential and office property built in November 1998.The building features a distinctive blue-and-white panel facade with circular window accents and is situated near the Tanga Monorail Station.

It is located at 1-1 Nakajima, Kokurakita Ward, Fukuoka Prefecture.

Six years on from Covid crisis, Republicans still politicizing science – and Fauci remains a political punching bag

A US Senate committee hearing featuring Dr Anthony Fauci revealed at least one certainty: six years after the pandemic, politicizing science remains a vital political tactic.

The high-profile hearing was pitched by its Republican chair, Rand Paul of Kentucky, as an investigation into the origins of the Covid pandemic. It quickly became a forum for recrimination of a once-leading US government scientist by Republican senators.

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Welkom in het Stamcafé aan iedereen die vandaag door welk wonder dan ook overleefd heeft. We hadden even een adempauze na de super mega terrorhittegolf vorige maand, maar de Hitte Des Doods heeft weer toegeslagen. We hadden weer eens een HITTERECORD met de "heetste 29 juli ooit gemeten". De rivieren worden zout, de bejaarden vallen bij bosjes en het is wachten tot hier de natuur ook besluit om te veranderen in een vuurzee. Het was een ongelofelijk zware dag en alles wijst op een ongelofelijk zware nacht. Omdat ook wij het belangrijk vinden om niet lichtzinnig over deze gevaarlijk tropische omstandigheden te doen, na de breek een fotoserie van al het ongekende zomerleed. Succes met plakken.

Klimaatvluchtelingen trekken naar de kust

Echt verschrikkelijk geauzer

RIP

De dieren weten het niet meer

???

Kermis ook niet te harden

Maar dat heeft natuurlijk niets met het weer te maken

GELUKKIG

Social

Vanaf 2027 zullen enkele jihadisten, gedetineerden met een „hoog risicoprofiel”, vrijkomen – hun celstraf hebben ze dan uitgezeten. Hoe weet je of voormalig terroristen voldoende gederadicaliseerd zijn? „De mens is vrij om te denken wat hij denkt, ons doel is om de overgang naar geweld te voorkomen.”

One of the modern world’s most powerful forces is among its least understood.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo: